Ontario Produce at supermarkets?

[Urban Shocker]

The California suppliers used to have a gentlemen's agreement with Ontario farmers to allow locally grown produce to be sold in our supermarkets during the summer months, but that's a thing of the distant past. Local producers don't have big refrigerated trucks either, so they have to get their perishable fruit to the supermarkets before it spoils.

I don't know how many varieties of fruit you can grow on a balcony, but strawberries and tomatoes have small root systems and can be grown in smallish planters. And you can grow strawberries in hanging pots - stack them, and you could create your own green wall. Lettuce, carrots and radishes shouldn't be that difficult. Herbs too, of course. The main issue might be with having enough light, so a south facing balcony would be best.

I don't know about blueberries, raspberries or blackcurrants, but redcurrants have a shallow root system and might grow well. The one in my back garden, which is about 12 years old, produces enormous amounts of fruit every summer.

Made my gooseberry jam this morning - just over 4 litres of it! Set perfectly - better than in previous years because I used an extra cup of water.

 

[Spoonman]

My girlfriend and I went strawberry picking at a farm just outside Guelph yesterday (just a stone's throw from Guelph lake). We spent a better part of an hour and amassed 6 quarts, costing us a little over 20 bucks. The nice part is that we were extraordinarily meticulous in our picking and can vouch for the quality and ripeness of each and every berry. Of course, we have more strawberries than we know what to do with, so we'll probably set aside a couple of quarts for some jam of our own.

Our big project for this year is to grow tomatoes on our balcony. Unfortunately, it's a north-east facing unit (hemmed in by highrises, to boot), so the plants only get a short but concentrated dose of sunshine in the early morning. We're starting to get a bit of flowering, so hopefully we can help them pollinate with a bit of Q-tip action. Other than that, we're growing a generous variety of herbs (thyme, tarragon, basil, dill, parsley and mint - the latter on its own, of course), and they're all getting along just fine.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Our big project for this year is to grow tomatoes on our balcony. Unfortunately, it's a north-east facing unit (hemmed in by highrises, to boot), so the plants only get a short but concentrated dose of sunshine in the early morning. We're starting to get a bit of flowering, so hopefully we can help them pollinate with a bit of Q-tip action. Other than that, we're growing a generous variety of herbs (thyme, tarragon, basil, dill, parsley and mint - the latter on its own, of course), and they're all getting along just fine.

Does the fruit need to be pollinated? Or is that just to produce seeds which will sprout next year, if planted? If they have to be pollinated, is the talk about the bee shortage true? Or do we have to pollinate the flowers ourselves with a Q-tip?

 

[Urban Shocker]

All this talk of furtive, surrogate "Q-tip action" on balconies, and the mysterious agency of bees, well and truly situates this as an urban issues forum doesn't it?

 

[Spoonman]

Does the fruit need to be pollinated? Or is that just to produce seeds which will sprout next year, if planted? If they have to be pollinated, is the talk about the bee shortage true? Or do we have to pollinate the flowers ourselves with a Q-tip?

I can't say I possess a green thumb, and maybe I'm just buying in to old wives' tales, but my understanding is that manual pollination, although not necessary for fruit production, can certainly help when raising tomatoes in suboptimal growing conditions. Since I'm on a 5th floor balcony in a fairly built-up area, I assume that I don't get a lot of bee traffic (although I've had the odd pesky bee find its way into my unit, so they definitely do swing by from time to time).

 

[Spoonman]

All this talk of furtive, surrogate "Q-tip action" on balconies, and the mysterious agency of bees, well and truly situates this as an urban issues forum doesn't it?

We can hardly risk prowling moderators to misconstrue our discussions about produce as the dissemination of rural propaganda, now can we? Surely that would be grounds for swift and decisive thread closure?

 

[Urban Shocker]

You can keep your clinical fifth floor detachment and feigned confusion about what bees do. I'm unapologetically brazen about living in rural Riverdale - where the bees are in a permanent frenzy of promiscuity, rolling around deliriously in the pollen all day, and hopping from one floral partner to the next ...

 

[afransen]

The California suppliers used to have a gentlemen's agreement with Ontario farmers to allow locally grown produce to be sold in our supermarkets during the summer months, but that's a thing of the distant past. Local producers don't have big refrigerated trucks either, so they have to get their perishable fruit to the supermarkets before it spoils.

I don't know how many varieties of fruit you can grow on a balcony, but strawberries and tomatoes have small root systems and can be grown in smallish planters. And you can grow strawberries in hanging pots - stack them, and you could create your own green wall. Lettuce, carrots and radishes shouldn't be that difficult. Herbs too, of course. The main issue might be with having enough light, so a south facing balcony would be best.

I don't know about blueberries, raspberries or blackcurrants, but redcurrants have a shallow root system and might grow well. The one in my back garden, which is about 12 years old, produces enormous amounts of fruit every summer.

Made my gooseberry jam this morning - just over 4 litres of it! Set perfectly - better than in previous years because I used an extra cup of water.

Bushes might be a challenge in a planter. You'd probably want to insulate the planter over the winter to protect it from the extremes in temperate.


About bees, apparently they are very successful in many cities, where there is a huge variety of plant species, so something is always in bloom. It might also have something to do with lower pesticide levels than you'd see in rural areas. I'm not sure how likely it'd be to get bees on the 40th story of a condo, so some manual pollination might be necessary.

For tomatoes, they produce a lot of pollen so some drifts from flower to flower. Manual pollination increases the % of flowers that generate fruit.

 

[adma]

We can hardly risk prowling moderators to misconstrue our discussions about produce as the dissemination of rural propaganda, now can we? Surely that would be grounds for swift and decisive thread closure?

Randy Hillier lost. Get over it.

 

[interchange42]

Also, Blackberries are now ready for picking from bushes & trees around town. Get 'em now before the birds do!

I'm pretty sure those blackberries you are talking about are Shocker's mulberries, as mulberries do grow on trees. Blackberries only grow on canes, like raspberries, and are usually ripe a little later in the summer.

42

 

[gregv]

strawberries

The Toronto Star had an interesting article a few weeks back on the California strawberry industry. They also followed along as strawberries travelled from the field in California to a home in Burlington, Ontario (took 2 days from picking).

http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/654217